


Faith and Evidence

by similarfruit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Eventual Smut, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Questioning Dean, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 03:41:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/similarfruit/pseuds/similarfruit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At four, Dean Winchester lost everything, including his faith. Through the years a stained glass angel in the small church his Uncle Bobby and Aunt Karen drag him to helps restore it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith and Evidence

    Dean didn't understand why he had to go to church. He knew that there wasn't anybody listening when he prayed. He knew it because he prayed to God to save his mom, and she still burned, along with their house and everything they owned. He knew it because he prayed to God for his Dad not to leave him, but he and Sammy were still left with Uncle Bobby and Aunt Karen. He knew, because the one thing Dad always told him was, "Look after Sammy," 'cause both he and his Dad knew that no one else was going to. At seven years old, he knew.

      "Stop fidgeting, Dean," Aunt Karen said, as they piled in to the car one Sunday morning. Dean let his tie drop. As soon as she shut the passenger side door, Bobby gave Dean a sympathetic look. Kneeling down beside Dean's door, buckling him in, he whispered, "I know you don't much care for church, but it's important to Karen that we all go as a family. Do you think you can just sit quietly and find something to amuse yourself with for two hours?" He gave Dean a conspiratorial look and shut the car door, sliding in to the driver's seat. Bobby shot a pointed look in the rear view mirror at Dean, raising one eyebrow questioningly.

      Dean grudgingly nodded his head, happy at least that Bobby understood. He leaned over to where Sammy was strapped into his car seat next to him to triple check the straps, then, satisfied that they were tight, leaned back and stared out the window. In the front seat, Aunt Karen was telling Uncle Bobby about the Burns' new baby, and they should get a present, and would Sue want a toy or a blanket… Dean tuned it out. He was good at that now. He'd been going to church for two years. Lots of time to practice.

      As the countryside gradually turned into suburban houses, then to the clustered buildings at the center of the small town of Sioux Falls, Dean drifted. He would rather be sleeping, or watching cartoons. Maybe he could sit next to Uncle Bobby today, instead of Aunt Karen, and go back to sleep. As long as he kept quiet, he didn't think Bobby would mind. 

      "Dean, sweetie, wake up. We're here." Aunt Karen was shaking his shoulder from the front seat. They walked (Dean trudged) up the front steps of the grand white building, with Sammy sleeping peacefully in Bobby's arms. Dean thought it was stupid that they brought Sammy to church. His little brother had just started to really get the hang of simple sentences, and had a fondness for shouting them at whoever would listen. He was happiest when he had a roomful of quiet people to shout at. Last week, in the middle of the sermon, he yelled, "Duck!" Half the congregation had hit the deck, while the other half turned towards the source of the commotion. Sammy had just giggled and started yelling,  "Quack! Duck goes quack!" The priest had just smiled, and gone on with the reading. Dean knew that if he'd done that, he'd be in big trouble.

      The group (family?) shuffled towards their normal pew, fifth from the front, just to the right. A hush fell over the quiet, small town church chatter as Father Jim raised his hands. 

      "May the Grace and Peace of the Lord our God be with you all," he said in a resounding and comforting voice.

      "And also with you," the more alert members of the congregation obligingly echoed back. 

      "Before we begin today, we have a very special treat. As you all know, St. Michael's suffered some extensive water damage this spring, which ruined most of the paintings that had surrounded our windows. I am pleased to announce that as of yesterday, all the damage has been repaired, along with some wonderful improvements. Our east wall has been reborn!"

      Dean huffed to himself. With all the white painting tarps that had covered the scaffolding above their heads and blocked out all the natural light, church had been even more depressing than usual. At least now he could go back to distracting himself by looking out the window to the edge of the forrest. Father Jim raised his hands and the tarps were pulled down. As the rest of the congregation oohed and aahed, Dean's heart fell. Stained glass. They had to go and block his only escape route with stained glass. He sank further into the pew.

      "Oh, darling, look! How lovely! Angels!" Karen whispered to Bobby, over Dean's head. Dean immediately sat back up. He knew about angels. Mom said they were watching over him. He took a second look at the windows to the East, which now seemed to glow with the sunrise. The ethereal figures seemed to move before his eyes, winking in the sunbeams and casting their eyes his way. Whatever the Priest was saying drifted away as Dean gazed at the mirages the colored glass cast into the church. The tallest of the angels, he guessed, was Michael, after the churches patron. He floated high on wings of golden glass, his emerald eyes looking down coldly on him.  

       Twenty feet up, Michael raised a flaming sword above his head, the tendrils of glass fire blending with his cascading blonde hair.Further down, Michael was flanked by who Dean could only assume were the other Archangels, Raphael and Gabriel. Raphael's dark eyes bore down on Dean, judging, so Dean quickly looked away. Gabriel's golden eyes twinkled with mischief, and his eyebrow seemed to quirk for a moment, before Dean blinked and told himself it was just the light playing tricks. He couldn't name any of the other life-sized figures that adorned the windows, but he gazed none the less. A bored-looking blonde angel floated on rose colored wings just below Raphael,  his ivory robes twisting in the frozen breeze.  A beautiful woman with ice shard wings and long flowing red hair peered from around Gabriel's wing, as if she were trying to peek at the partitioners. Dean followed the lines of her blue-gray robe until he caught sight of another figure he had not seen at first glance.

      A smaller angel, only just life size, was kneeling on the window sill, with beautiful heather gray wings extended behind him, filling a corner of the far window. Dean could not see much color in the work as a whole, it was mainly grays and golds and silvers that caught the light, only colored accents, but here… The angel's cobalt blue eyes had just caught a flash of sun, perhaps when some trees blew in the wind, but Dean knew the angel was looking at him. The angel's soft cream robes cascaded to the sill where he knelt and fell away where the angel had extended his hand, as if to help a fallen man to his feet. His skin glowed with a warmth none of the angels, with their icy skin, had. Such kindness Dean saw in those eyes, so unlike the harsh, soulless eyes the other angels possessed. Dean was captivated.  

      Just because God was gone didn't mean that nobody was listening. "Angels are watching over you," mom had said. Maybe they were.

      For the first time in three years, Dean prayed. 

While everyone else stood to sing, Dean stared at the angel.  "Please, angel. I need someone to help me. I just want to talk to my Dad." Dean clasped his hands tight and prayed with all his might that the angel with the kind blue eyes would hear him.

      Bobby nudged him back to reality. "Just five more minutes, kid." Dean loved Bobby sometimes.

      "Now, before we go," Father Jim began, "let me draw your attention once again to the beautiful new windows. The person we have to thank for these is here with us today. Charles Shurley kindly donated these to St. Michaels, and for that he deserves our thanks. There will be a small reception in the adjoining room after the service today where you will all be able to meet the artist and ask him questions. I urge you all to come. The mass is ended. Go in peace."

      The hubbub that usually accompanied the end of mass was even louder today as families talked about whether or not to attend the reception. Dean quickly turned to Aunt Karen and said, "Please can we please go and talk to Mr. Shurley please?"

Karen looked pleasantly surprised, but she said, happily, "Of course, honey."

Dean grinned and was off like a shot to the reception room, leaving in his dust a very surprised Singer family. He knew he had lots of questions for Mr. Shurley, and was relieved that not many people had decided to meet the artist. More time for him to asks questions. He needed to know who his angel was. But where was Mr. Shurley? 

      "Father Jim!" Dean exclaimed as he barreled into the priest's legs. "Where is the artist? I need to ask him something very important right now!"

      Father Jim smiled and pointed to a scruffy looking man who appeared to be trying to blend in with the wallpaper. Dean shouted a quick "thanks!" before pushing around people's legs to get to the man. 

      "Mr. Shurley you need to come with me. It is very important!" Dean grabbed him by the wrist and turned back to the church, dragging the man behind him. He didn't stop until they were standing below Dean's angel. Dean turned to face his slightly shocked captive. "Please tell me who this is, Mr. Shurley."

      "That's… that's… wait… why do you… that's… please just call me Chuck… I," he stammered. "Sorry. It's just that Jim didn't tell me about this whole reception. I'm not really good at being the center of attention. I guess I should be thanking you for taking me away from there." Now he was blabbering.

      "Chuck!" Dean said, impatiently.

      "Yes, sorry. That's Castiel."

      "Who?" said Father Jim, who had wandered over, presumably in search of Chuck. 

      "Yeah," Chuck said, the nervousness returned to his voice. "I'm not surprised you've never heard of him. He's only mentioned in one or two lines of some of the apocryphal texts. Enoch, I think it was. Not even sure why I put him up here. I was a little bit dr…" he glanced nervously at Jim, "sleep deprived when I drew the original design. It just felt right to put him in there. He's the angel of Thursdays and solitude... I think." 

      "Well I think he fits right in, Charles. Shall we go back to the reception now? They're waiting for you."

      Chuck nodded, but cast a miserable glance over his shoulder to Dean as he was being led away by Father Jim. 

      Dean turned back to his angel… to Castiel. Father Jim was wrong about fitting in. Castiel threw the whole window off balance, kneeling in the corner, looking downwards instead of at whatever magnificent thing most of the other angels were staring at. Just as he was reaching out his hand to touch the tip of one of Castiel's gray wings, he was startled by the shout of his name.

      "Dean! I've been looking everywhere for you!" Karen ran up to him. "It's time to go home, sweetie. Sammy's getting hungry. We can look at the glass next week."

      She took his hand and they walked out, but not before Dean could send one more prayer. "Please, Castiel, I just want to talk to my dad."

      As soon as Dean was through the door to his room, be began furiously ripping off his confining church clothes. The laces to his dress shoes were particularly hard to untie. He threw his left shoe hard across the room, and it skidded under his wardrobe. He yanked and pulled at his tie until it was loose enough to slip over his head, throwing it unceremoniously on the floor, where the rest of his outfit soon followed. He sat on his bed and stared as his crumpled clothes, clothes that he saw Aunt Karen ironing at 11 o'clock last night when he had snuck down to the kitchen for another slice of cherry pie. Sighing, Dean bent down and grabbed the pile, hanging his suit up in the closet. 

      "Dean, sweetie, can you come feed Sammy for me? He's squirming! I'm making sandwiches for lunch! And if you come set the table, I'll pretend to ignore it when you sneak a slice of pie after."

Dean was already pulling on a t-shirt and shorts and moving towards the door to feed Sammy, but at the mention of pie he was off like a shot. 

      "Hey Sammy! What are we eatin' today? OOOh, mushy carrots! Yum!" Dean contorted his face into the silly looks that Sam liked as he tried to get his brother to eat some truly disgusting looking mush. Dean didn't blame him for not wanting to eat it. It looked like barf, but it was what kids like Sammy needed, so Dean would do what was best for him. Sam actually seemed to like the rabbit food. Give Dean a burger any day, he hated carrots, mashed or not. Kudos to carrot cake, but until someone invented carrot pie, he was staying far away.

      He made the mistake of making too funny a face while Sam was chewing, and paid dearly by getting a spray of carrot flavored laughter in the face. This, of course, caused even more laughter, which, in turn, sprayed more carrot. It could have been the mush in his ear playing tricks on him, but Dean thought he heard the click of a camera somewhere to his left. Sammy had dissolved into hysterics by now, reaching over to land a mush-covered hand on Dean's cheek. Dean opened his right eye, the one less covered in Sam's lunch, to see a bright pink, giggling Sam, and two bright pink giggling adults in the corner, one of whom had a camera pointed directly at him. To their credit, they really were trying to stifle the laughter, but one look at Dean's sullen face and all hope was lost. Raucous laughter filled the kitchen, soon joined by Dean's own giggles. 

      "Okay, Sammy. You win for today. No more carrot. Don't try this again, though, or I'm switchin' to the spinach. I don't care how much of a rabbit you are, nobody likes spinach." 

      Bobby had grabbed a dishrag and was whipping off Dean's face and neck when he said, "Oh, boy, that was the funniest thing I've seen all week. Good thing Karen already had the camera out to get a few shots of those faces you make when you try to feed him, because that was priceless. Why don't you go upstairs and shower the carrot out of your hair. I can finish with Sam. Scoot, boy."

      Dean wiped a glob of pureed carrot out of his eyes so he could see the stairs and trudged back up to his room for his second shower of the day. He shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough he had to take one. 

      "Dean, honey, put your shirt straight into the laundry sink! I don't want it to stain," Karen shouted. He would have remembered to do that anyways. He didn't want his favorite Led Zeppelin shirt to get ruined. Bobby had gotten it for him a few months ago and he'd worn it down so fast it looked ten years old, like one of his dad's old shirts he used to sleep in. He shucked off his clothes, tossing his shirt into the sink and running some water for it to soak out the carrot, and put the rest of his clothes in the hamper. As he got into the shower and turned on the spray, he thought he heard the telephone ringing downstairs, but he couldn't be sure. He set about scrubbing his short hair, still chuckling at the memory of Sam's face. 

      His hair was still wet and plastered to his forehead when he came bounding back down the stairs a half hour later. He wanted pie. He knew as soon as he got downstairs that something was wrong. The solidness had descended over the kitchen. Bobby still had his hands on the telephone. Karen was silently trying to rearrange some cans that needed no arranging, a nervous habit of hers that Dean picked up within his first weeks at the Singer house. The only thing not affected seemed to be Sam, who was still giggling happily in his high chair. 

      "I've got good news for you, boy," said Bobby, to cheerily. "It looks like you I be seeing your dad in two months. He's only got a few more jobs out West, then he has a few days off to swing by here and see you kids. How does that sound, eh?”

      He didn't know why they didn't seem happy about this. He was ecstatic. He knew what it meant. The one thing, his dad was alive. For another, it meant that angels really were watching over him. He still didn't put any stock in God, or Fate, or whatever. Now he knew. Cas was going to take care of him. He sent up a quick prayer of thanks and headed for the pie. 


End file.
